a sentiment evidently suggested to the poet’s mind by some device or emblem in which the incongruity had found a place. Farther research might clear up this and other unexplained allusions in Shakespeare to fables or proverbs; but there is no necessity for attempting this in every instance that occurs. “_Friendship enduring even after death_,” might receive a variety of illustrations. The conjugal relation of life frequently exemplifies its truth; and occasionally there are friends who show still more strongly how death hallows the memory of the departed, and makes survivors all the more faithful in their love. As the emblem of such fidelity and affection Alciat (Emb. 159) selects the figures of the elm and the vine.[143] Amicitia etiam poſt mortem durans. _EMBLEMA CLIX._ [Illustration: _Alciat, 1581._] The consociation in life is not forgotten; and though the supporting tree should die, the twining plant still grasps it round and adorns it with leaves and fruit. ARENTEM _ſenio, nudam quoque frondibus vlmum, Complexa eſt viridi vitis opaca coma: Agnoſcitque vices naturæ, & grata parenti Officij; reddit mutua iura ſuo. Exemploque monet, tales nos quærere amicos, Quos neque disſiungat fædere summa dies._ To which lines Whitney (p. 62) gives for interpretation the two stanzas,— “A Withered Elme, whose boughes weare bare of leaues And sappe, was sunke with age into the roote: A fruictefull vine, vnto her bodie cleaues, Whose grapes did hange, from toppe vnto the foote: And when the Elme, was rotten, drie, and dead, His braunches still, the vine abowt it spread. Which showes, wee shoulde be linck’de with such a frende, That might reuiue, and helpe when wee bee oulde: And when wee stoope, and drawe vnto our ende, Our staggering state, to helpe for to vphoulde: Yea, when wee shall be like a sencelesse block, That for our sakes, will still imbrace our stock.” The Emblems of Joachim Camerarius,—_Ex Re Herbaria_ (edition 1590, p. 36),—have a similar device and motto,— “_Quamlibet arenti vitis tamen hæret in ulmo, Sic quoque post mortem verus amicus amat._” [Sidenote: _i.e._] “Yet as it pleases the vine clings to the withered elm, So also after death the true friend loves.” And in the Emblems of Otho Vænius (Antwerp, 1608, p. 244), four lines of Alciat being quoted, there are both English and Italian versions, to— “_Loue after death._” “The vyne doth still embrace the elme by age ore-past, Which did in former tyme those feeble stalks vphold, And constantly remaynes with it now beeing old, Loue is not kil’d by death, that after death doth last.” And,— “Ne per morte muore.”